Account based marketing is a strategy that focuses on targeted marketing communications at an account-based level, and often on higher value targets, instead of using traditional B2B tactics that tend to be broader. It is effectively seeing an account, as a “market of one.” The most successful ABM strategies combine and align sales and marketing departments to focus their attention on a chosen number of high value accounts that will yield the highest potential business opportunity. Some examples of ABM marketing techniques comprise of highly personalised emails, landing pages and relevant content for each account which can in turn generate awareness, engagement and education around your services and products. Jason Katz who is a strategic success manager at Terminus states, “The ultimate goal of a customer marketing ABM campaign is to increase revenue, decrease churn and build long lasting relationships with your clients.” Essentially ABM prioritises personal targeting and nurturing specific contacts within an account or vertical or even around a focused job title. Benefits of an account-based marketing strategy include:
- Customer loyalty: The process of ABM marketing requires considerable time and very specific, relevant content when engaging with a group of chosen accounts. By taking the extra time to cement these relationships, accounts engage more and have a tendency to become more loyal to your business, transitioning them to brand advocates. Content should inspire and align with industry trends, wherever possible
- Higher ROI: Account based marketing is accurate and measurable, providing the highest ROI of all B2B marketing tactics. According to the Alterra group a survey showed that 97% of marketers achieved a higher ROI, due to shorter sales cycles and improved conversion rates.
- Effective use of marketing budget: Traditional marketing techniques can often spend additional time on lead qualification, however ABM can be far more economical to determining which accounts are best suited for your service before you chase them down and then spend your money on reaching them. ABM should increase the flow of marketing-qualified leads, based on effective account selection, identifying the correct roles and harnessing customer insights.
If you need help on how to act and measure account-based initiatives, then there are many platforms designed to help B2B marketers on how to do so. Below are two of the best companies that can offer support.
- Demandbase: is an ABM platform that specialises in B2B digital advertising. If you are focused on digital first, online based campaigns, then Demandbase could be a huge help to you. They also offer the ability to personalise websites using firmographic data. Firmographics provide deeper insights that B2B marketing teams can leverage to target accounts that will benefit most from their services.
- Drift: is the first conversational account-based marketing platform. They enable marketing and sales teams to provide a personalised experience whenever someone from a target account lands on your website due to the data that you have in your tech stack. This as allows you to convert visitors on your page into potential clients which will drive your revenue.
If you’d like any more information regarding Account Based Marketing (ABM) please drop us a line at hello@tkm-consultants.com
Author: Aman Dhaliwal, Junior Consultant, TKM